Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

interestingengineering.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 384 posts

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#241

Post by edgyquant »

plutonorm wrote: post #73
patcon wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, though the ethics are certainly dicey, I do wonder whether recreating a bridge intelligence between man and animal would raise appropriate societal questions that we've chosen not the think about all of modern history (lacking any sort of Neanderthal cohabitant). It might help us all be in more relation with the world. Our lack of relation feels to me to be part of what's driving us into this extinction eve…

Neanderthals had larger brains in proportion to their body mass than we do. They were possibly smarter than we were.

That is widely attributed to them having a much greater sense of smell than us. They are thought to be equally as intelligent if not less so.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#242

Post by alisonkisk »

renewiltord wrote: post #55
grawprog wrote: post #46

I find it hard to describe how I feel about this. These scientists essentially created what may have been a new species, that perhaps would have had similar sentience to us and had them terminated after 100 days. The cat's out of the bag with this research so to speak now. Someone's bound to do this again The part about whether they should have been born or not, which was the ethical thing is what tears at me. Is it…

Our track record for messing with the fundamental fabric of reality is creating antibiotics, and over the period of a century saving so many lives that wars of earlier periods are negligible in comparison. A natural reaction from people with high sanctity/degradation (in the MFT sense) is to avoid touching the trolley lever at all points. Decision making is considered association with the decision. The naturalistic f…

A good sanity check is "any moral theory that proves Nazism correct is probably mistaken".

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#243

Post by lucb1e »

Geminidog wrote: post #36
booleandilemma wrote: post #22

This is crucial in order to maintain ethical boundaries. After about 100 days after the fetus had been growing, the international team unanimously agreed to remove the fetus through a C-section I feel we’ve already entered into sensitive territory by aborting it.

Yeah, aborting in some circles is the same as murder so the "ethics" is a bit blurry here. The crossed the line by creating life and then they killed what could essentially be something that could have had the intelligence of a regular human being. I'm not an anti-abortionist but I can't deny that the ethics in this area is blurry. Even worse is when you're aborting genetically modified life.

> aborting in some circles is the same as murder so the "ethics" is a bit blurry here

You give those circles too much credit, it's like the mythical flat-earthers. I don't know anyone who feels that way and would expect only countries like saudi arabia to have problems with abortion (though I recently learned it's also state-dependent in the USA). Probably takes some time to get the people of countries in various states of development to get used to the idea, similar to rights for black people, euthanasia, gay marriage, transgender acceptance, etc. Everyone being equal and aiming to decrease worldsuck is a process that takes time for some reason, and I don't know of a country that has moved the other direction for a significant amount of time (heck, an unexpectedly large majority of babies around the world get vaccinations nowadays) so we'll get there eventually.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#244

Post by alisonkisk »

renewiltord wrote: post #182
ajuc wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can uplift species and you choose not to, you have killed their cognition. By that logic you killed all the kids you could have made when you weren't having sex.

Yes, I did. And I find that acceptable. After all, child killing isn't an unalloyed evil. There are children I am morally all right with killing. I make this choice actively every day. I sleep soundly after.

Are you also morally comfortably with yourself being killed? I assume so, for the same reasons you give.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#245

Post by alisonkisk »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #174
whytaka wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, if you can save billions and you choose not to, you have killed them. The trolley problem remains unsolved. I don't find arguments anymore persuasive when they are written as declarations.

How do you solve it? What does the solution look like? It's not like the 4-colour problem.

Sometimes, by reading someone's first few comments, you can tell that there's nothing of substance underneath.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#246

Post by alisonkisk »

grimgrin wrote: post #216
grawprog wrote: post #46

I find it hard to describe how I feel about this. These scientists essentially created what may have been a new species, that perhaps would have had similar sentience to us and had them terminated after 100 days. The cat's out of the bag with this research so to speak now. Someone's bound to do this again The part about whether they should have been born or not, which was the ethical thing is what tears at me. Is it…

> This is crucial in order to maintain ethical boundaries. After about 100 days after the fetus had been growing, the international team unanimously agreed to remove the fetus through a C-section. Bringing a "new human-gene-influenced monkey into this world would step over the ethical line," said Huttner. > "To let them come to be born, in my opinion, would have been irresponsible as a first step," Huttner mentioned,…

Excuse me, but "pro-choice" doesn't mean you get to choose whether to abort someone else's fetus.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#247

Post by awkim »

grawprog wrote: post #46

I find it hard to describe how I feel about this. These scientists essentially created what may have been a new species, that perhaps would have had similar sentience to us and had them terminated after 100 days. The cat's out of the bag with this research so to speak now. Someone's bound to do this again The part about whether they should have been born or not, which was the ethical thing is what tears at me. Is it…

This is the precursor to a dystopian ape lead future.

"YOU MANIACS. YOU BLEW IT UP. DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!"

-Some astronaut in the future

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#248

Post by fiblye »

alisonkisk wrote: post #240
belval wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the commenter you are responding to, but I would assume if it has not attained sentience then it should not be considered sentient and as such is not a sentient creature. It has to be, otherwise the abortion debate would be very different. Aborting a somewhat conscious fetus would be much closer to murder.

If you latch on to me and suck my blood, is it murder for me to remove you from my body just because you can't live without parasitically feeding off of me?

Should the biological process through which most mammals carry on their future existence be considered an act of parasitism? I think being a parasite usually requires two conditions be met: 1 is that they're separate species, and 2 is that it's bad for the creature. Children eventually grow up and generally take care of the "host" that they sucked blood from, and their existence is generally beneficial for the species, so it's hard to define as a parasite.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#249

Post by lopmotr »

erickj wrote: post #138
vikramkr wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're giving nature too much credit. Nature doesn't try and balance life. Nature doesn't care- it throws asteroid impacts and supervolcanos and natural disasters all over the place. Life just happens to be very very resilient and consistently able to jump back and fill new niches. Nature also "created" us - were a product of the universe like everything else. If we are destabilizing, so is nature. And most scientist…

However in the exact same vane that "Nature doesn't care"... We as Humans should and DO care. We are not Nature, and thus these existential defining issues should at least give us some pause to debate and evaluate the moral quandaries and responsibilities that this level of engineering power wields.

Caring isn't fundamentally good or right. It just happens to be a feeling that humans have. We probably have it because it gives our species some advantage over other species. It might be that a more "right" way of behaving is aggressive eugenics to create better life for future humans or even a future species. Animals often do this by killing the runt of their litter or hen-pecking each other to death.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#250

Post by missedthecue »

goatinaboat wrote: post #119
echelon wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ponder whether these things have souls, then they're directly related. There's a spectrum here. At one end, religious folks believe life and soul begins at conception. Some also believe tampering with genes is tampering with god's creation. At the other end, atheists believe in so soul. Some believe personhood doesn't begin until a being is able to think, feel, and reflect upon the world around it. They hold t…

At one end, religious folks believe life and soul begins at conception. Some also believe tampering with genes is tampering with god's creation. Not all religions. The Qu’ran states that the soul enters the body exactly 40 days after conception, for example.

Still, many/most abortive procedures happen after 40 days, in the US at least.
Post reply on HN